


seawalls

by tusktooth



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24666181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tusktooth/pseuds/tusktooth
Summary: The last time Inej saw Kaz was five years ago, when her ship sailed away from Ketterdam. Now that she's back, she has to face him again. The prospect is both terrifying and exhilarating.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	seawalls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wonderwomans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwomans/gifts).



> [joyce!!!!](http://frozen2s.tumblr.com/) I really enjoyed writing this for you! I struggled a bit with fluff for this pairing, as I think that Kaz has a pretty unique way of expressing his love but I think I managed to accomplish my goal lol. I really hope that you like it and thank you so much!  
> \---  
> [my lit tumblr](http://bistarkov.tumblr.com/)  
> [my main](http://twinkfjord.tumblr.com/)

Five years.

The number hung over Inej’s head from a thin rope, as if it were about to fall and crush her. It had been just over five years since the last time she had left Ketterdam, after getting her family settled in Novyi Zem and stopping back there to stock up on everything she needed. five years since she had last seen Kaz, since he’d kissed her goodbye and watched her ship sail away for the last time so that she and her crew could take down slavers and deliver people back to the places they’d been stolen from or to new homes in cities better than Ketterdam.

She didn’t regret it. Inej felt like she was doing what the Saints put her here to do: free people from the shackles that had once been placed upon her wrists and bring those that would enslave them, or promote enslavement, to justice. Over the past few years, she had saved hundreds of people and put quite a few bad folks behind bars.  _ The Wraith _ was a fearsome name to those who sailed the sea in pursuit of wealth and power through enslavement and corruption but a respected name to the more ethical. They’d also inspired other crews to pursue the same goals and, in addition to the three ships that she now technically managed, there were countless others independently working toward building a better world. She was proud of everything she accomplished and of everything that she would continue to accomplish.

But she wasn’t done with Ketterdam. She had told Kaz that when she left and it was still the utter truth. There was a lot of work to do on the sea but much also needed to be done on land. She needed to root out the city’s corruption, take down the Bosses that promoted slavery as a means of making money, and close the brothels that operated without the proper payment and consent of their employees. It wouldn’t be easy work, meaningful change never was, but it was necessary for creating a better future for generations to come.

And then of course, though it was far more selfish than her other reasons for returning, she missed Kaz and the rest of her friends. Though Inej had never really had much of a chance to be a child after she was kidnapped, she had still left Ketterdam a teenager. Now she was actually an adult and had started to live her on her own terms but she realized that those terms didn’t include some of the people that she cared so much about. She needed to go back, to catch up with everyone, to figure out if this thing with Kaz was ever going to lead anywhere. She just hoped that it wasn’t too late.

Inej didn’t know why she had expected Kaz to be there when she docked. She hadn’t sent ahead to tell him she was coming back to the city so it followed that he would have no idea. Still, he had eyes and ears everywhere, so sometimes he just knew things without asking.

When they docked Inej gave members of her crew orders for the next few days, as this was mostly a check-in on the city to see what they could do and then plan at sea while they continued their work. It was also a vacation of sorts, though. Inej would be catching up with her old friends and the others would have some time to go about their own business, whether it be personal or more touristy, as they collected intel, of course.

While her business was important, she had spent a long time at sea and frankly just needed a bath, so she decided that she would sort lodging before getting to work. Her feet took her toward East Stave, toward the Slat, and then she stopped. She had money now, she could pay for a room in an inn. Besides, who was to say that Kaz was even there anymore?

Instead, she went all the way across town toward Wylan’s mansion, as it seemed pretty unlikely that they would have gotten up and moved in the past few years. Not with a house like that.

As she walked through the Financial District, Inej quickly became aware that she seemed woefully out of place in her pirate getup that certainly needed a wash. Perhaps this was better than walking through the Barrel, where she might need to put her knives to good use. A few dirty looks were far better than a potential attack.

When she got the mansion, a guard stopped her at the gate. She was fairly young and probably new to the position, at least new since Inej’s departure.

“Excuse me, ma’am, what business do you have here?” she asked suspiciously, looking Inej up and down.

“I’m an old friend of Wylan’s,” she explained. “I haven’t been in town in a while and I thought that I would come by and catch up.”

“Master Van Eck is very particular about his guests,” she explained, which made sense given both his father and his involvement with the Dregs. “I’ll have to check with him before I let anybody in.”

“Sure,” she replied. “It’s-”

“INEJ GHAFA!” yelled a voice from behind the gate.

Jesper came running out from inside the mansion, his unbuttoned white shirt blowing open in the wind. “Let her in!”

The guard stepped aside and let her enter, just in time for Jesper to run into her and wrap her in a hug. “It’s been so long! Does Kaz know you’re here? And you missed the wedding, asshole!”

She couldn’t help but laugh. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her friends until just now. “Let me inside so that I can get clean. I’ll tell you everything.”

* * *

After spending so much time at sea or in smaller inns, Inej had forgotten how nice Wylan’s mansion was. Jesper led her to a bedroom to unpack, the one that she’d stayed in before, and she hadn’t even remembered that there was a bathroom attached to the room, complete with an elegant clawfoot bathtub.

Once she was cleaned, she made her way downstairs to the foyer, where Wylan and Jesper were waiting for her with a plate of cookies and some lemonade.

It was nice, catching up with them. Apparently, they had gotten married the year prior in a relatively small ceremony, just with good friends and family present, and they had tried to contact her but didn’t really know how to. Nina had come from Ravka for the ceremony and stuck around for the week but had to go back for work. Inej wished she had been more present here, so she could have been there for the wedding and seen Nina, but she just as easily could have wound up busy during that time anyway, as her line of work didn’t exactly have a set schedule.

She told them about what she had been doing, about catching slavers and freeing people, and told them her favorite pirate stories because, over the past five years, she had collected plenty, both on her own and from others.

They had been chatting for a while until she broached the topic that she had been eager to discuss. “What has Kaz been up to these days?”

Jesper and Wylan shared a wide-eyed glance.

“You mean you haven’t seen him?” Wylan asked her.

She shook her head. “I wanted a bath and I knew that you guys had one. We only docked here this afternoon.”

“He’ll want to see you,” Jesper said, standing up abruptly. “We should get you there now.”

“Is it an emergency?” she asked with an eyebrow raised. “I’m going to be here at least for the next few days.”

“Not an emergency necessarily,” he told her. “It’s just that he still talks about you quite a bit and I know he’ll want to see you now. And that he may or may not murder me for not telling you to go see him sooner.”

Wylan snorted. “That’s a bit of an understatement.”

And Inej was pretty touched by that. Because Kaz was a busy man and had plenty going for him. Plus, he wasn’t really one for discussing his feelings. It was comforting to know that he might be thinking about her just as much as she thought about him.

“He’s probably in the Crow Club right now,” Wylan told her. “There’s a private party there tonight; Kaz is trying to negotiate something with some rich mercher. I don’t really remember the specifics but he’s probably ensuring everything is prepared for tonight.”

“Well then I probably shouldn’t bother him-” she attempted to reason.

Jesper waved her off. “You couldn’t bother Kaz if you tried. Go, see him. It’ll make his day better, especially if he has to deal with this bullshit tonight.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you not work with him anymore?”

“I do but Wylan doesn’t,” Jesper told her. “And I’m just there to be the pretty face with the guns half the time. Works better for me when the big guys underestimate my mind.”

“I’d imagine it does,” she replied with a smile.

Jesper got up and hugged her once more. “Go. See him. And  _ please _ come back to say goodbye before you disappear for another five years, asshole.”

* * *

The Crow Club was mostly as she remembered it: same black and red facade, same silver crow, same big circular card tables. She got the reasoning behind it, but she wasn’t thrilled at the same lack of windows. The place could use some light.

Kaz wasn’t in the front when she walked in. There were some staff members moving things around or hanging decorations. She recognized some of the staff and didn’t recognize others but none of them stopped her as she walked through the building and into the office.

He didn’t look up when she walked in which, well, she  _ was _ being kind of quiet so it wasn’t entirely unreasonable that he wouldn’t notice. It was just that Kaz was typically more on-guard. It wasn’t easy to slip under his nose. Perhaps things had changed over the past few years. Maybe he had less to fear.

She cleared her throat to notify him of her presence but he didn’t look up, still firmly concentrated on his paperwork, leaving her only a view of his fluffy black-brown hair.

“You can tell me what it is you want,” he told her after a moment. “My ears happen to work quite well.”

Inej stifled a laugh. “I’ll settle for seeing your eyes.”

Wide brown eyes met hers and Kaz stood up in a quick motion, using his chair to guide him before grabbing his cane and making his way over to her. “You’re back.”

She nodded. “I am. We just docked here earlier this afternoon.”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he said.

“Five years,” she said, a bit ashamed of not coming by sooner.

“Five years, a month, and three days,” he corrected. “Technically.”

She blinked. Kaz had counted the days. Even she had lost track after a while, despite having him on her mind so often. Though, she had never met another person that had a memory as astounding as Kaz did.

“I should have returned to Ketterdam sooner. I’m sorry,” she apologized.

He shrugged, a neutral expression on his face. “You shouldn’t be. You’ve been doing incredible work on the sea. Tales of  _ The Wraith _ even travel back here, to the Barrel.”

“Knowing most of the Bosses, I’d imagine they were quite fearsome tales,” she said a bit proudly.

“Some of them,” he replied. “But some of the gangs are under new leadership these days, under people with less of a penchant for human trafficking. I’ve made quite sure of that.”

“You’ve been rooting out corruption in the city for me?” she asked, a bit surprised. He knew that was one of her goals, but she had assumed that he would work on accomplishing his own first.

“Not just for you,” he corrected. “For everyone here. One bad fruit can poison the rest of the bowl. I’ve got to cut out the rot before I’m the next one infected.”

“You won’t be infected,” she replied immediately. “You’re better than you think, Kaz.”

He shook his head. “Nobody is as good as they think they are. We often see some of our own flaws for truth but choose to ignore others.”

“But you choose to ignore the good,” she told him.

He sighed. “In any case, your visit may have taken me by surprise but I’m very happy that you’re here. Seems that I need to be keeping a better eye on the seas. I should have met you at the port but you’re surprisingly difficult to track.”

“Well, we can’t have the bad guys catching us.”

“Nobody can catch a wraith,” he said. “Not until it’s too late.”

“Do you need help around here?” she asked, gesturing toward the doorway.

He cocked an eyebrow. “I assumed you were in Ketterdam on work. Is that not the case?”

Inej shrugged. “Partially. We’re putting feelers out for the city to evaluate what we can do here. But it’s also a bit of a break. The crew has been working hard and deserves a break. Besides, I selfishly wanted to see my friends when I was here.”

“Well, if my spider would like to put her talents to good use, I could certainly use your help tonight,” he admitted. “Nobody else moves with the silence of the wind as you do. Come back tonight, a little before six, and I’ll fill you in on the details.”

“I’ll leave you to your preparations,” she said with a nod, turning to leave.

“And Inej,” he said as she was about to leave.

She turned around. “Yes?”

“It really is great to see you again,” he told her. “I do hope that we can catch up later, after the party has ended.”

Inej smiled. “I hope so too.”

* * *

It felt just like old times, doing this job for Kaz. While he and Jesper were inside schmoozing. Or, well, Jesper was outwardly schmoozing and Kaz was convincing the mercher of his points in a logical and calculated way, Inej took her place at the rooftops, watching over the Crow Club during the party to observe what might be happening outside Kaz’s thumb. After it was over, she tailed the mercher until he got home, taking note of who went with him and who he stopped to talk to so that she could report everything back to Kaz. 

Overall, the mercher’s behavior wasn’t all that shifty, though Inej did learn that he was cheating on his wife with a much younger woman, which was something that she was sure Kaz could spin to his advantage if necessary.

After the mercher was closed up in his mansion, she returned to the Crow Club to give her report to Kaz.

“Did you find anything?” he asked her as soon as she entered.

She shook her head. “Nothing particularly interesting. He’s having an affair with a younger woman, potentially from one of the pleasure houses.”

He nodded. “Well, good work regardless. We missed having you around.”

“Isn’t this great,” Jesper said, throwing an arm over her shoulder. “The original three, back together again. Pick up Wylan from home and summon Nina from Ravka, and we could rob a bank! Even without our muscle!”

“Robbing a Ketterdam bank would be foolish,” Kaz said. “They would find a way to make their accountholders cover the loss instead of paying for it themselves, all in the name of Ghezen.”

“We’ll target the merchers directly then,” Jesper amended.

“And leave them to place blame on their employees?” Inej asked. “It’s far better to turn their own misdeeds into weapons against them. It’s difficult to come back from the self-destruction of your reputation.”

Jesper crossed his arms. “You two are no fun, did you know that? This is all hypothetical anyway because, if you haven’t forgotten, Nina is in  _ Ravka _ .”

“I don’t know,” Kaz said, steadying his gaze on Inej. “You never know what surprises might roll up on your doorstep.”

She smiled slightly. “I don’t know. I’ve always been far better at sneaking up on people than Nina. Of course, she’s able to use being loud to her advantage.”

“Her skills are quite useful,” Kaz agreed. “But I also happen to enjoy yours quite a lot.”

“What the fuck, guys?” Jesper asked. “I’m literally still here. If you’re going to flirt in your weird, non-traditional way, please allow me to clear out before I’m forced to witness it.”

Inej rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have a husband to go bother anyway?”

“I  _ never _ bother Wylan,” Jesper replied. “Every moment in my presence is a gift and he’s well aware of that fact. That’s why he put a ring on my finger.”

“I’m certain that’s the reason,” Kaz said with a straight face somehow.

“Well, screw you both. I’m going home,” he declared, turning and starting toward the door. “Inej if you don’t stop by to say goodbye before you go, I will hire someone to track you down so I can personally yell at you.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll stop by,” she called to him as he walked out the door.

“I never realized that you two were close,” Kaz told her. “But he missed you a lot while you were gone.”

“I did live with them for a bit,” she reminded him. “Besides, he’s fun to talk to most of the time. And he’s far more intelligent than people give him credit for.”

“That much is true,” he agreed. “Now, enough of Jesper. How about the two of us get out of here? I’ve got a few things to show you.”

She nodded and allowed him to lead them out of the Crow Club, locking it up behind them, and through the Barrel, toward West Stave. Inej stopped in her tracks when she realized where he might be taking her.

“We’re headed to the Menagerie, aren’t we?” she said, her jaw tightening.

He nodded.

“I don’t want to go back there,” she told him.

“We won’t go inside if you’d prefer not to,” he told her. “But it’s worth taking a look.”

“If it’s under new management, you only need to tell me that,” she replied. “The only thing that I’d like to see there is Tante Heleen’s head on a spike.”

“I have a feeling that you’ll like what you see, even if it’s not that,” he told her, continuing in that direction without waiting for her to follow.

For a moment, she contemplated staying where she stood, sticking with her statement. But she trusted Kaz more than she hated to be reminded of her past, even after not seeing him for so many years, so she followed.

What she saw was not the lavish brothel that often haunted her dreams. In fact, there was no longer a building there at all. Instead, it was more of a plaza, with statues and symbols lining the edges. Flowers and small gifts were stacked up near them as a few individuals kneeled in what appeared to be prayer.

The tallest statue was in the middle of the plaza, illuminated by the light of several candles. It was a beautiful statue of Sankt Petyr, the very Saint that she had chosen as the namesake for the first knife that Kaz gifted her.

She turned to Kaz. “This is beautiful.”

“I’m not a religious man but many people here have their Gods and their Saints so I thought I’d give them a place to worship them,” he explained. “Faith gives people hope and I think that’s something that many of the people of the Barrel need.”

As she looked further around the plaza, she noticed that not all of the shrines were dedicated to the Saints. There were tributes to Ghezen, to Djel. The plaza offered hope for all the people of the Barrel, not just those brought from Ravka.

“How did you do it?” she asked him. “How did you tear down that horrible place and replace it with something so holy?”

“The Menagerie was rotten,” he said simply. “It wasn’t difficult to expose it for what it was: a vessel for human trafficking. By blackmailing certain former patrons, it wasn’t difficult to get people to take a stand against it and drive it’s value down. Then I bought it.”

“And what of the people that worked here?”

Because they hadn’t chosen that life for themselves but they didn’t have the funds to live otherwise. Was a life on the streets really any better for those women? At least Tante Heleen couldn’t hurt anyone else as she’d hurt Inej.

“I accepted some payment from certain merchers in the process of this. I paid them each a fair share so they could find better homes, in Ketterdam or across the sea,” he told her.

“You’re a good man, Kaz,” she said with a smile.

“Does this make me good when I did it for you?” he asked.

“If you only did it for me, this plaza would be full of only Saints,” she replied. “You created a place for the people, for a better Ketterdam.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “I do have another thing to show you. Back at the Slat.”

If Nina were there, she probably would have made a joke about Kaz being so forward to take her back to his place. But Inej knew that Kaz wouldn’t be coy about his intentions, especially not with her. He truly did have something to show her back at the Slat, whatever it may be.

She nodded. “Take me to the Slat.”

* * *

On the outside, the Slat was pretty much as she had imagined it, but with a new coat of paint. Had that truly been what Kaz brought her here to see, a coat of rusty red paint?

But then he brought her inside.

It was dry and warmer than most buildings in the Barrel, which was nothing new, but he’d certainly made improvements since she was last here. The stairs now had a railing to prevent potential injuries, more of the rooms had solid doors with locks, the kitchen area was certainly quite a bit better than it had been in the past and the pantry was stocked with food. Nothing frivolous, of course, but still something to sustain the residents on a proper diet.

He showed her inside one of the rooms and that was better too. There were real beds with good mattresses now, and it even had a desk for someone to work at. It truly felt like the Slat was a place where someone could  _ live _ now, not just survive. It certainly wasn’t the best place to live in Ketterdam, but it was bounds and leaps nicer than anything else in the Barrel.

“This is really nice,” she told him. “You paid for this yourself?”

He nodded. “It’s my home and the home of my people. I had the money and we deserved better.”

“And you showed it to me because-” she said, gesturing for him to finish the sentence for her. There had to be some sort of angle to this. There always was some sort of angle with him, some sort of benefit that he reaped besides pleasing others. With the plaza, it was bringing hope to the people of the Barrel, which in turn built trust for the Dregs. She had a reason that he redid the Slat for reasons beyond giving his people a better place to live, even if satisfaction did improve work ethic and, if those were the actual reasons, there wouldn’t be any purpose in him bringing her here.

Kaz sighed. “I suppose that I wanted you to know that there’s a place here for you if you ever decide to return to Ketterdam on a more permanent basis.”

Her face fell. “Kaz, you know I can’t do that right now.”

He nodded. “I’m aware. You have important work to do and it doesn’t involve you living in the Slat right now. I just wanted to remind you that there’s an offer on the table if you ever should need it. Though I understand that you have a much nicer room waiting in Wylan and Jesper’s house, so perhaps you wouldn’t need it anyway.”

She smiled softly and took a step toward him. “Wylan and Jesper’s place is nice, but it’s not home.”

“The Slat isn’t your home either,” he inferred from her expression, not offering anything in the way of emotion herself.

“It’s not,” she agreed. “But neither is my ship nor the place where my family now lives. Not even Ravka is my home anymore.”

“So you’d don’t have a home?” he asked. “I feel like you, of all people, would understand a need to be grounded every once in a while, though you certainly get much of that from your spirituality.”

She grabbed his arm lightly, careful to only touch the sleeve of his shirt, as she didn’t want to cause him any discomfort by touching his bare skin. She told him once that she would only have him without armor, but five years was a great deal and she couldn’t expect him to be comfortable with her touch after so much time apart.

“My home isn’t a place,” she said simply. “It’s people. My home is my crew, who stand by me every day and fight for a better world. It’s Jesper and Wylan, who offer me a place in their house without a word. It’s Nina, who I haven’t seen in a long time but ache to speak to constantly. My home is you, Kaz. This thing between you and me, it’s never come easy and it may never be simple, but just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean I don't value it greatly.”

“If I asked you to stay now, you would deny me,” he said, a bit surprised.

Inej nodded. “I would. But you knew that and you understand why. Because if I asked you to join me, you wouldn’t do that either.”

He sighed. “I suppose we’re doomed for failure, you and I.”

“No,” she said, taking another step forward and meeting his deep brown eyes. “We can have our lives and still have each other, even if it means that we’re not always side by side. Look at how easily we fell right back into the place we were before we left.”

“I would wait for you forever,” he admitted. “But five years is a long time for people to be apart and declare themselves to be together.”

She thought back to her years at sea, to thinking about him every day, to visiting him in her dreams. She thought about when she wanted so badly to dock in Ketterdam that first year but feared that if she stopped there she wouldn’t be able to return to the sea. Or about those times after, where she avoided it because she feared that she had waited too long.

And then Inej thought back to two weeks ago when she decided that she needed to face the music. Part of her had come to Ketterdam expecting to lose everything in terms of her relationships with Kaz and her friends. Instead, it was all still at her fingertips, even if she had missed out on some important moments. She wasn’t foolish enough to let it slip from her grasp again.

“It won’t be another five years,” she promised him. “It won’t even be one. Much of what you’ve been doing here aligns perfectly with my work but that doesn’t mean that we won’t have to come back to help eventually. Even if it’s not now, this is a major port city. It’s a great place to stop, even if we haven’t used it before. If I can stop to see my family on occasion, I can stop to see you. You’re just as important to me as they are.”

“I can’t be something that separates you from your mission, Inej,” he told her.

“You won’t be,” she said truthfully. “Forgive me if this sounds a bit selfish, but if my mission and my happiness cannot coexist, is it a mission worth undertaking? I wouldn’t trade my life right now for the world but I still want you to be a part of it, even from afar.”

“I must confess, I never thought that I’d feel for another person as I feel for you, Inej,” he admitted. “At times, I find it difficult to feel. It’s what makes me ruthless when I need to be and what makes me the best boss in the Barrel. But, with you, there is warmth in me, familiarity.”

“Perhaps I am a home to you then,” she proposed.

Kaz nodded. “Ketterdam is the only home that I truly remember. I was only nine when I arrived and most of life before that is blurred in my memory. But, to be candid, Ketterdam isn’t the same when you’re not in it. So you’re right, Inej. When I think of home, you’re often the second face that crosses my mind, second to only my own brother.”

“I hope you don’t see me as a sibling,” she said with an amused grin.

He raised an eyebrow. “Certainly not. I’m speaking solely in terms of importance to me.”

“For the next few days, while I’m here, can we do more work together?” she asked him. “Just like old times?”

“I would enjoy that,” he told her. “And perhaps even take some time to ourselves.”

Inej looked back at the door to the Slat behind her. It was getting quite late and she should probably get back to Jesper and Wylan’s and get some sleep. “I should probably go.”

She started to turn but a gloved hand grabbed her forearm lightly and spun her around. “Inej, wait.”

Inej turned around and met Kaz’s eyes once more.

“If you’re comfortable with it, I’d like to offer you a room here for the night,” he said. “These streets are dangerous at night, even to a wraith.”

“I can handle myself.”

Kaz reached down and removed one of his gloves before reaching out toward her and lightly running his fingers through her hair. It wasn’t skin on skin contact but, for Kaz, it was quite significant. “Stay.”

“I can get my stuff from their place tomorrow,” she said with a nod. “Being here with you while I’m here sounds wonderful.”

He smiled, which was a rare sight. “I’ll prepare you a room.”


End file.
